Everything She Never Was
by twillandbonnie
Summary: Rowena Ravenclaw is dying. FOUNDER'S ERA.


**4.) **"Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man?" Friedrich Nietzsche

**11.) No using the word said**

**Set in 1002**

Rowena Ravenclaw was no longer a very young woman. That was no secret. In the past years, her diadem had been stolen along with her daughter, and one of her other three companions didn't die but might as well have for all she cared. That wasn't true of course, but she would claim it.

She now lie on her death bed. She had everything she could have ever dreamed for and more but felt so empty somehow… Her regrets outweigh the good things in her mind at this point.

She regrets not spending the time with her daughter that she should have, and she couldn't really blame her daughter for leaving her. Not really. The other founders seemed to spend more time and care more about little Helena than she did. Rowena was always pushing her to be the best she could possibly be which was a good thing she supposed. In a way at least. That was the only thing she did though.

Helena wasn't untalented, no. Far from it in fact. Her intelligence was nearly up to par with her mother's, but that wasn't even a fair comparison. The fact that Helena at such a young age could even be compared to the intelligence of who was considered the cleverest witch to live was a remarkable achievement, daughter or not.

"Baron…" Rowena whispered, closing her eyes. She pulled herself up into a sitting position and took in a sharp breath to help swallow her pride. "Please bring me my daughter… bring Helena to me. It's all I ask. I have the utmost faith in you…"

He would go. She already knew that the young man so enamored by her daughter would jump at the chance to bring her back to the wizarding world, back to him specifically. Maybe her daughter might return his affections one day, but she doubted it. She was never as fond as Helena's father as he was of her… Maybe that was part of the problem. Rowena liked logic, the things she could understand in facts and figures. Love and true parenting fell outside of that, and for the life of her, something she knew she didn't have much longer, she couldn't understand it.

Her dying wish was to see her daughter though. She could understand that. She loved her daughter. With everything in her being. She just didn't know how to show it. She wasn't like Helga who always seemed to have a smile and something kind to say, her heart filled with love, or young Godric who wore his emotions proudly on his sleeve.

She knew what dear Helga would be doing on her death bed. Praying and praying. She was the only religious of the four, but Rowena had considered it. Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God a mistake of man's? She had decided that the second answer was more logical however which was what she truly valued.

Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure. Her wit was what got her into this. She might be bitter perhaps. It was empty at Hogwarts like it never had been before though. When Salazar was here, things were better. The houses didn't duel outside of class. She had someone who understood her preference for logic and reason and knowledge over the heart.

Life was _perfect_, or as perfect as it could be. She missed it. If she could just go back for even a day, she would be content. She realized with a rise of guilt that going back would be her dying wish over seeing Helena if it were possible.

Days passed since her rather depressing musings, and her already grey hair seemed to turn more so. Then the news came.

It wasn't gentle, but Rowena wouldn't have appreciated that anyway. It was an apparition in front of her, an echo of what had been her daughter. She resembled her mother in every way it was possible. Young Helena's eyes that weren't really eyes, just an echo of eyes that had been, bored into her.

"I hate you," she hissed with all the venom she could put in it which was actually rather a lot. Salazar would be proud of it, Rowena thought. Not that it mattered, and the hiss which could have been an echo of Slytherin himself wasn't too surprising.

After all, he had been closer than she to her daughter once upon a time. He probably still was for that matter.

"I don't hate you," the woman replied quietly, bringing her eyes up to see her daughter's face. It was true. She could never bring herself to hate her daughter, after all this time. Human instincts, love, something with psychology that she would never have to chance to discover, she supposed.

Helena glared at her. "You certainly do not love me. You were the only one absent from my life. _Salazar Slytherin_, famous for simply not caring in the slightest could even spare me the time of day. He cared about me more than you did! I visited him after I left. He has a fine family, one that you should have sought to model a long time ago. Maybe then I would not have left. Maybe then I would not have died."

Rowena gave her daughter a blank look. Her face would be flushed if it were alive from the looks of it. Her daughter might not be as clever as her, but she had what Rowena lacked. She had passion and empathy and the ability to get more than irritated at someone.

Helena was everything Rowena could never be. Rowena was everything Helena shouldn't have wanted to be.

It wasn't long before she passed quietly herself, not joining her daughter as a ghost at Hogwarts. She left this world but still watched the story continue, and she must admit, she was rather proud of her daughter for swallowing her pride the way that she never could that night in 1998.


End file.
